FARGO:  Tuesday 10PM on FX – DVR Alert Previously… on FARGO:  It’s chance that puts mild-mannered, beaten-down Bemidji, Minnesota insurance salesman Lester Nygaard (Martin Freeman) beside sociopath Lorne Malvo (Billy Bob Thornton) shortly after Lester had a run-in with the bully who made his high school years a living hell.  But when asked directly […]

  BENCHED:  Tuesday 10:30PM on USA – If Nothing Else Is On… BENCHED, USA Network’s latest attempt to broaden its repertoire beyond its core of light-hearted procedurals, doesn’t have much of a pilot, but there’s some potential for growth.  The pilot, written by series co-creators Michaela Watkins (better known as an actress–she was the dippy […]

  The problem with having your main character “go dark” is that she actually has to get somewhere.  In the Season 4 finale of COVERT AFFAIRS, Annie Walker (Piper Perabo) finally seemed to cross a line by coldbloodedly shooting her season-plus nemesis Henry Wilcox (Gregory Itzin) to death in a Hong Kong alley, but like […]

  Vampires may live forever, but TV shows don’t, and tonight the coffin closed on THE VAMPIRE DIARIES, the pre-superhero champion of the then-fledgling CW network when it debuted 8 years ago.  In truth, the close of business was a season or two past due:  not only were the ratings way down from their peak, […]

  The third season of ORPHAN BLACK was a step up from Season 2, although the show is still the victim of its plotting.  The main narrative for the season was set up in the Season 2 finale, with the discovery that along with the (mostly) female “Leda” clones, all played by Tatiana Maslany, there […]

  The HBO miniseries version of Gillian Flynn’s novel SHARP OBJECTS proved to be a fascinating exercise in adaptation.  Although the TV credits reported the show to be “created by” showrunner Marti Noxon, it was clearly the result of a close collaboration between Noxon, Flynn (not just a producer on the project but one of […]

  WHISKEY CAVALIER:  Wednesday 10PM on ABC ABC capped Oscar Night with a bit of dessert, very much a trifle:  a “sneak preview” of WHISKEY CAVALIER, which will officially premiere on Wednesday night with the same episode.  The genre is Romantic Intrigue Lite, very much in the tradition of Charade, one of the classics of […]

> See A Word About Busted Pilots The word was that Stephen Gaghan’s pilot METRO was in serious consideration for NBC’s schedule until the very end (conventional wisdom has it that the final choice came down to Metro vs. Awake, and the latter made the cut).  That’s too bad:  the pilot is an impressive piece […]